


All Alone After All

by Internpup



Category: Lost Boys (1987)
Genre: Angst, Familial Abuse, Gen, Physical Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-12
Updated: 2013-07-12
Packaged: 2017-12-19 05:55:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/880222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Internpup/pseuds/Internpup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everybody knows, but nobody says why Sam wakes up with nightmares, why mom jumps at noises in the dark, and why Mike never sleeps.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Alone After All

Sam woke up choking, covered in sweat, and came face to face with the bug-eyes of a possum with yellow fangs pointing every way out of its wide and ugly mouth. He tried to scream but he couldn’t draw a full breath. The terror from his nightmare was still gripping his chest so tightly he felt like he was being smothered. He kicked the stuffed possum onto the floor and pulled the blankets over his head. “We’re not in Phoenix. We’re here…. In Santa Carla. Get a grip… Sam.” He wheezed, talking himself down like he did every night. He’d never told his family about the nightmares, but they knew. They knew the same way Sam knew why mom jumped at noises in the night, and laughed it off when anyone asked.  
“Just old memories coming back.” She would chuckle and give that smile that begged nobody to ask. And nobody did. 

They knew the same way that Sam knew why Mike never slept. He just went out night after night, and came back so exhausted or stoned that he wouldn’t dream. 

Gramps knew too. He knew why his daughter and grand kids had left suddenly in the night, and driven all the way to Santa Carla with no money and almost no possessions, but he didn’t ask either, and mom never offered. 

The silence was as suffocating as the fear had been. Sam wanted to scream at the top of his lungs that they weren’t happy, that every day they lived in silent terror that their father would track them down and drag them back to the hell they had escaped from. Mom hadn’t left the house in five years when they finally ran. Their father’s rules were enforced with his fists, and the belt, and worse if Sam or Mike ever tried to defend their fragile mother. The last straw had been when dad brought home a gun. Mom at that moment knew that they would someday be killed by that man, and the next night, they ran with what little money mom had managed to hide over the years. 

It wasn’t all an act. For the first time Sam could remember, they were free. Even with the background fear that Dad would come after them any moment, and the constant scanning for his face in the crowd, or a familiar vehicle, they could stop where they wanted, eat what they wanted, and talk to strangers without being afraid of what would happen when they got home. The price they paid for their freedom was silence.

They had a week to settle into the silence, and practice their happy family act before they reached Grandpa’s place. 

Mom wondered why Mike wouldn’t talk to her anymore. “Aren’t we friends?” She had asked him. Why was she shocked that Mike had stopped talking? She wouldn’t talk about the elephant in the room. Not even to them, her sons who had been there with her, and escaped with her to this new life where they were supposed to pretend it had never happened. 

Sam curled up with himself. Mike was gone. Mom didn’t want to know. Sam was all alone, and all there was to do was sleep.


End file.
